the times Saturday May 28 2022
Travel 45
The Rock of CashelNeed to
knowSusan d’Arcy was a
guest of Cashel Palace
and Stena Line. B&B
doubles from £245
(cashelpalacehotel.ie).
Return sailings from
Fishguard to Rosslare,
from £310 for a car
and two passengers
(stenaline.com).
Or fly to Corkpicted in a seven-foot-wide painting that
hangs nearby. Some Characters Seen at
Cheltenham on Gold Cup Day is by the
English artist Waldron West; its cast in-
cludes a young Princess Elizabeth, Win-
ston Churchill and Keith Piggott, the
horse trainer and father of jockey Lester.
Afterwards we cross the flagstoned cor-
ridor for dinner at the Bishop’s Buttery,
where tables are laid beneath vaulted ceil-
ings. I go for a starter of sweetbreads,
having recently watched an episode of the
hit HBO show in which the American ce-
lebrity chef Julia Child cooks them. I hear
a couple nearby tell the maitre d’ they’d or-
dered them for the same reason. I wonder
if the chef Stephen Hayes has capitalised
on the ingredient’s cameo appearance to
showcase it. My offal, topped with morel
mushrooms and wild garlic flowers, is deli-
cious as is my agnolotti, stuffed with celeri-
ac, truffle and pine nut. I finish with a
wickedly good Tipperary whiskey baba,
accompanied by toasted barley ice cream.
We intend to nip out for a nightcap but
earlier that day we had tried one of the
spa’s signature treatments, a detoxifying
seaweed bath. We soaked alfresco in side-
by-side tubs on a private terrace in water
laced with algae hand-harvested off Ire-
land’s west coast. Our therapist warned us
that we’d sleep like babies that night. She
was right. We are too tired to head out in
search of a hangover. It’s a shame as one of
the joys of the palace is that it sits on the
main street of Cashel, a cliché-cute Irish
country town that is stuffed with craft
shops, quaint houses painted in delightful-
ly clashing colours and pubs with crepus-
cular interiors designed for the craic and
late-night shenanigans.
Liver damage will have to wait for
another time. I’m still no fan of
Catholic guilt but I’ll enjoy the bishop’s gilt
any time.ed the seed money for the country’s rival
religion: Guinness. Archbishop Arthur
Price left his godson Arthur Guinness a
legacy of £100, which the young man used
to establish a brewery in Dublin. Things
get a little hazier over who actually created
the famous stout. Locals insist Guinness
junior merely refined his father’s brew,
which was first sipped in Cashel after
Guinness senior burnt the hops for the
bishop’s beer.
As a fitting tribute to that heritage, hops
are once again growing in the hotel’s
walled garden, alongside flower-filled par-
terres, velvet lawns and woodland walks,
but its three acres are dominated by two
ancient mulberry trees. Safe to say these
two specimens would never make it into a
Chelsea Flower Show display. They are
gnarled to the point of looking half-dead,
but considering that they date back to 1702,
that’s fair enough. They were planted to
commemorate the coronation of Queen
Anne, who had ambitions to establish a
silk industry in the British Isles and de-
crease her gown-makers’ reliance on
imports from China. Silkworms have so-
phisticated tastes, dining exclusively on
mulberry leaves. Sadly, her majesty’s
cunning plan failed to take into account
the local temperatures — not warm
enough for those picky moths — and it
faltered before it really got started.
We venture down to the hotel basement
and the cosy, wood-panelled Guinness Bar
to salute them all with a pint of “Vitamin
G”. The arches between the bar’s series of
tiny snugs bear the names of well-known
past patrons. We tick off Ronald Reagan,
Anjelica Huston, Grace Kelly and Richard
Harris, as well as Arthur Guinness himself.
A QR code displayed on the counter takes
you to a recording of the bar’s late and
much-loved head barman Denis Heffer-
nan describing yet more famous faces de-
COURTESY OF CASHEL PALACEThe drawing roommore Irish country piles
Ballyfin, Co Laois
You’d be forgiven for
thinking you must be 90
minutes’ drive from
Paris rather than from
Dublin at
this superb country
estate where the decor
has all the grandeur of a
mini Versailles. It’s
stuffed with art and
antiques and
surrounded by grounds
that include a 28-acre
lake, bluebell woods
and secret grottoes.
Lunch is in a
conservatory that was
modelled on Kew
Gardens’ glasshouses;
champagne cocktails
are best enjoyed in the gold drawing
room; and bedrooms are lavish with
four-posters, silk swags and heritage
wallpapers. Activities include fishing,
horse riding and falconry.
Details Full-board doubles from £788
(ballyfin.com). Fly to DublinGregans Castle Hotel, Co Clare
JRR Tolkien stayed at this 18th-century
manor house on the outskirts of the
seaside village of Ballyvaughan and
locals draw parallels between the
scenery in his Lord of the Rings series
and the eerie beauty of the weathered
limestone landscape of the Burren that
surrounds the hotel. Rooms have no
TVs and there’s no on-site spa, so
instead take long walks and go
birdwatching on the Cliffs of Moher and
the Aran Islands. The TV comedy Father
Ted was filmed on the Burren and you
can tick off locations including the
farmhouse that doubled as the priests’
house on Craggy Island.Details B&B doubles from £220
(gregans.ie). Fly to GalwayAdare Manor, Co Limerick
This 19th-century neo-gothic château,
surrounded by 840 acres of parkland, is
owned by JP McManus, one of the
Magniers’ partners in Sandy Lane in
Barbados. He has spent more than
£44 million on the manor, including
pimping its 104 traditionally decorated
bedrooms as well as restoring its 365
leaded windows, 52 chimneys, seven
stone pillars and four towers. Don your
tweeds, tennis whites or plus-fours for
sporting endeavours such as clay pigeon
shooting, archery, and golf on its 18-hole
course. For some stylish downtime,
borrow one of the hotel’s dogs for a
bracing country walk, swim in the 17m
swimming pool, take a treatment in the
spa and dine in the Michelin-starred Oak
Room restaurant.
Details B&B doubles from £285
(adaremanor.com). Fly to Dublin2203
Adare ManorBallyfin